Matthew Wilsher

Former Technical Coach at Cruzeiro

Matthew Wilsher

Former Technical Coach at Cruzeiro

Biography

Ten years ago I set out in a quest to discover if there was a process for producing top players. If the best players see opportunities and make decisions other players don’t, then I wanted to know if these qualities
could be trained in professional footballers.

Having spent the formation of my career working in the USA as a Youth Coach for New York Red Bulls, I returned to
the England to take my UEFA B licence and spent 3 years working as a Youth Coach/ Recruitment Coordinator for my hometown club Cambridge United.

In August 2009 I worked closely with the Head of Performance for the Austrian national team, Roger Spry. I developed a method comprising 90 exercises to maximise individual talent which supports the theory ‘Superstars aren’t born, they’re made.

Over a two year period I worked intensively with a select group of Academy players in England from Leicester City,
Arsenal, Liverpool and Sheffield Wednesday – 50% of these went on to sign professional contracts with Premiership or Championship clubs.

In 2011 I returned to the US for the second time, accepting a position as Head of Elite Performance at Chicago Fire.
At this point I had a proven method for developing talent and increasing players performance, however it was missing a key ingredient, so in January 2012 I travelled to Brazil to find out if the innate characteristics of South American players; the creativity, individual skill and moments of genius, that were pivotal to my philosophy, could be trained.

During five years I taught myself Portuguese, worked as a technical coach at Fluminense and Cruzeiro where I
applied my methods with some of the best raw talent in the world, developed knowledge of the training methods and
techniques, gained insight into the philosophies of South American football and it’s coaches visiting clubs in Argentina and Chile and in December 2013 became the first European coach to attain an A licence with the CBF.
When I started ten years ago I had two clear objectives; use the best as your example and source knowledge from the experts. Primarily this is my motivation for applying for the course.

I have attached an overview of my objectives, my philosophy, the method I use to train players, a profile of the players that fit this philosophy, who Matt Wilsher is as a coach in addition to the principles behind the system. It’s a vision which has been built around quality with the intention to always be better.

As a coach I have always believed the most important qualities are; 1. Global vision of football 2. Experience
3. Personality and charisma 4. Innovation to think new ways of football, so I have shaped my career around these
values.

Now at 33 years old, embarking on the next phase of my career, the opportunity to study a specific Post Graduation in High Performance Football Coaching forms a key part in helping me achieve my ultimate ambition of one day
becoming a top football manager.